Horn-Rimmed Glasses shrugged his shoulders and
expressed what was on
everyone’s minds: “There’s only one war, right?”
“Is there?”
“Yeah, in Vietnam.” He was suddenly not so sure of his answer.
“What about what’s happening in the south?” No one was willing to
answer that question. Father pointed to one of only two black kids in
the class.
The student, who sat near the front of the room, had hair shaved close
to his head and almond-shaped dark eyes. He was husky and tall, with
hands that seemed designed to play a piano. He was planning to be a
science major in college. “You mean desegregation, Father?”
“Tell me about it.”
“Well, everybody knows about it.”
“I don’t,” Father replied. “I’m not from this country. You’ve probably
noticed that from my accent. But I’ve heard about it. So describe it to
me.”
I wondered if Father was serious about not knowing about integration.
How could anyone not know about that? The kid began explaining about
the civil rights movement and the fight to desegregate schools and
lunch counters. He talked eloquently about Martin Luther King and the
amazing work he did organizing a movement to fight against racial
discrimination.
“Don’t you think there’s a war against black people in this country?”
“Yeah, there is.” He felt for sure that’s what Father wanted to hear.
“There’s still a lot of prejudice in this country. Black people are
still being discriminated against.”
“So you think the fool would see racial discrimination from the top of
that hill in D.C.?”
“Yeah, sure. Lots of it.”
I was beginning to think that I had been wrong about Father. Though he
was trying his best to be hip and with it, as we said, he seemed
genuinely sincere. Maybe he did believe in the values that young people
stood for. He was from another country. Perhaps the church was more
liberal where he came from. It was going to be a great school year if
all we had to do was listen to rock music and give our opinions about
the lyrics.
“So the fool sees racial discrimination. What about poverty? Isn’t
there a lot of poverty in America?” Father looked at a heavyset Italian
student with a Charlie Brown face and curly dark hair. He nodded and
looked nervously at the priest.
Charlie Brown couldn’t think of anything to say except, “Yeah, there
is.”
“The fool would see a lot of poor people?”
Charlie Brown nodded.
“To take it to another
level--Who thinks there’s a war against the poor in this country?”
Two hands darted up. One of the boy was enthusiastically waving his,
desperate to get Father’s attention. He succeeded.
“What do you think?” Father asked as he walked over to our
self-professed Sicilian radical whose greatest heroes were Sacco and
Vanzetti, the anarchists he believed were falsely put to death for the
murder of a paymaster and his guard in South Braintree, Massachusetts
in the 1920’s. Every Columbus Day, he wished everyone a happy “Sacco
and Vanzetti Day.” When he graduated, he planned to join the Students
for a Democratic Society and start the revolution that was going to
overthrow capitalism. He was short and stocky with hair that couldn’t
make its mind up as to whether it wanted to be straight or wavy. He had
a heavy five o’clock shadow, even at 10am. He always carried a copy of
the Communist Manifesto and quoted from it often. The consensus in
school was that he was the student most likely to end up as a
long-haired stoner in a psychedelic group in the Haight Ashbury in San
Francisco.
“I think there’s a lotta poverty cause we live in a capitalistic
society,” our Marxist said proudly and without hesitation.
“Hmm, and what does that mean?”
“It means a few guys with a lotta money control most of the wealth.”
“You sound like you’ve been doing a little reading on the subject.”
“I have.” He smiled. He looked around the room for approval. There was
none.
“So the fool would see a lot of poverty in America?”
“He’d see that the wealth needs to be redistributed.”
“That’s a serious challenge. How do you propose to do that?”
Marxist began to outline his plan. Father kept interrupting with
questions. He didn’t seem judgmental at all. He came off genuinely
inquisitive. I wanted to jump into the discussion but was so mesmerized
by the ease with which Father engaged what would, in any other
classroom, be a forbidden topic that I decided to just watch and
listen. I suspected Father would cut off debate when Marxist got too
carried away, as he always did, but he didn’t. Marxist had his moment
in the spotlight and he was going to get in every word that he could.
The conversation wound down on its own, with both Father and the
Marxist agreeing that massive social change was needed to address
problems such as poverty.
“That was very good. Hope you all learned something. It’s not everyday
that you get to hear from someone with a different viewpoint like
that.” Little did Father know that Marxist lectured us daily whenever
he could. He hardly kept his opinions to himself. “So back to my
original question, who is John Lennon singing about in that song?”
Hands immediately shot high into the air. A lot of kids suddenly had
opinions. They answered with confidence, trying to outdo each other.
“It’s Jesus.”
“It’s Buddha.”
“It’s John Lennon himself.” That answer got a lot of nods from other
students.
“And you?” Father looked at me. I hadn’t raised my hand yet. Which was
unusual. I was often one of the first to express my feelings.
I hesitated, then cleared my throat. I had been thinking a lot about
what I was going to say. I realized that I had never really understood
the lyrics of that song. I knew it was about a guy sitting on a hill
seeing through a lot of the world’s bullshit. But it was deeper than
that.
“Since John Lennon wrote it and he’s an atheist,” I said and paused.
That word had so much weight in religion class that I put special
emphasis on it to see how Father would react. He didn’t flinch. How
would he feel if he knew that I had decided the year before that God
was no more real than Zeus? A friend had given me a copy of Allen
Ginsberg’s Howl and it had changed my life forever. I stopped going to
Mass and Confession.
“And? Continue,” Father said nonchalantly.
“Well, I don’t think he’s singing about Jesus or Buddha. I think it’s
about all of us. Like if everyone’s telling me that I gotta join the
Army and go kill people in Vietnam and I say no, then I’m feeling like
that guy sitting on the hill.”
“Good point. How do the rest of you feel about that? Are we all the
fool on the hill?”
“Lennon ain’t no a-tiest!” It was the kid with the dark-rimmed glasses.
He was annoyed. “No one in their right mind would be!”
Father smiled. “But he says he is. He even said once that the Beatles
are more popular than Jesus. Which is probably true. Jesus wasn’t
followed everywhere he went by throngs of screaming girls. He should’ve
been but he wasn’t. Maybe if he and the Apostles played guitars.” He
paused. He was pleased with himself for saying that. But some of the
kids weren’t pleased that Father seemed to be siding with me.
“A-tiests are bad people,” an Italian kid with green eyes and olive
skin said.
“Why’s that?”
“Cause they don’t believe in God.”
“Interestingly enough, Lennon’s songs are very spiritual, even though
he doesn’t believe in God,” Father said.
“I don’t think they’re spiritual.” It was the Marxist.
“Then what are they?”
“He’s advocating revolution. He even wrote a song called revolution.
He’s a Marxist.”
“But the revolution song is critical of Marxists.”
“No. Maoists. He’s down on them.”
“Can you be a Marxist and still be spiritual?”
“Marxists are atheists.”
“Are you an atheist?”
“I don’t know if I’d call myself an atheist...” Mr. revolutionary
wasn’t brave enough to admit it. He had better sense than I did.
“I’m an atheist.” I blurted out. I had become so relaxed by the
discussion that I didn’t even think before I said it.
Father waited a couple beats before answering, “Are you really an
atheist?”
“Yeah.” I knew immediately I had said something wrong. Father didn’t
seem too upset, though.
“Do you know what the word means?”
“Course I do.”
He obviously didn’t believe me. Or he was trying to give me a chance to
reconsider and back down. “It means that you don’t believe in a God.
You don’t even believe in the possibility of a god. It’s different than
being an agnostic where you leave open the possibility that a supreme
being might exist. Are you more of an agnostic, perhaps?”
“This whole discussion’s crazy!” That was a skinny blond Irish kid with
rosy cheeks and narrow brown eyes.
“What’s
the point?”
“It’s not crazy,” I said. “There’s no proof of a god. That’s why
Lennon’s singing about the “Fool” on the Hill. This person’s up there
on that mountain seeing the truth about everything including God and
nobody believes him. They think he’s a fool but actually they’re the
fools!”
“Like you? You think you’re the fool on the hill?” It was Horn-Rimmed
Glasses. He laughed. “Well, you’re a fool all right.”
“Hold on, class,” Father said. “So, you don’t think that there’s any
proof that god exists?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. Pushing the envelop was fun. I didn’t care
what the kids in class thought about me. And I certainly didn’t mind
making Father uncomfortable. Trouble was, he was good at maintaining
his calm. I wish I knew how he was really feeling. Panicked that a
student had taken things this far? Perhaps I was flattering myself.
Father came off cool as a cucumber.
“Man, you’re sick,” a tall kid with a long pointy nose and thick pouty
lips said. Bored with most of his studies, he usually sat in the back
of the room and drew caricatures of fellow students. “If you don’t
believe in God, then you don’t believe in nothing. And that’s pretty
bad.”
“Hold on now. Everybody’s got a right to their opinion.” To me, Father
said: “There’s no proof that God doesn’t exist.”
“Checkmate. You can’t prove he exists and I can’t prove he doesn’t.”
The Marxist laughed. “He’s got you there, Father.” Students began
talking amongst themselves.
“One conversation at a time.” Father snapped. I wasn’t sure if he was
becoming annoyed at me or at my classmates who were speaking out of
turn. The class quieted down. “Look at the incredible things in the
world--nature, the stars at night, the rich variety of animal and plant
life. The fact that we can think and dream. How could those things come
into being without some sort of divine intervention?”
“Big bang. An accident. Evolution.”
“Not enough.”
“Have you ever read Fred Hoyle’s big bang theory?”
“No.”
“Then how can you say it’s not enough. Have you read Darwin?”
“Of course.”
“It explains everything.”
“They’re only theories...”
“Based on research and science.”
“And faith.”
“There’s some faith. But your religion is all faith and no science.”
“My religion is your religion.”
“I’m an atheist, remember?” I
was getting bolder by the minute. The Marxist was in seventh heaven.
Horn-Rimmed Glasses had his hand up and was desperately trying to get
Father’s attention.
“You’re still a Catholic.”
“Not really.”
“Yes, you are, you nitwit!” Horn-Rimmed yelled.
“You’re in Catholic school,” Father said, holding out his hand to quiet
down Horn-Rimmed.
“Not by my choice.”
“You go to Mass, Confession...”
“Can I plead the fifth?” I asked, smiling.
The Marxist laughed. “Way to go,” he said. He no doubt regretted that
it was me and not him challenging Father.
“You’re enjoying this.” Did Father just realize that?
“Actually, I am.”
“I suspect you’re not taking this discussion seriously.”
“How could I? It’s absurd. What’s it prove to bring Beatle records in
here and act all hip when you don’t wanna hear what we’re really
thinking. You don’t wanna hear how I feel about Catholicism or the Pope
or even Catholic school. You’d probably expel me if I told you.”
“That’s what you deserve!” It was Horn-Rimmed.
“Speak your mind, brother!” Marxist shouted to me. “Freedom of speech.”
“Enough of that!” Father said to the Marxist. He took a deep breathe.
“There’s a line that has to be drawn. I can’t allow chaos in this
class. This is not anarchy.”
“The music you’ve been playing today is about rebellion and
questioning. It doesn’t belong in a religion class. If Lennon had his
way, there’d be no religion. I feel the same way.”
“You understand that with freedom comes responsibility...”
“That’s not freedom then.”
“So you can do or say anything you want and there shouldn’t be
consequences?”
“There’s always consequences. Just like when you open Pandora’s Box in
class, be prepared for what’s in there.”
I could tell that Father had had enough. “See me after class,” he said,
going over to the record player. “Now let’s listen to another song.” He
put on “Eleanor Rigby.” I kept my mouth shut during that discussion and
Father didn’t call on me. Horn-Rimmed was making a point about Father
MacKenzie being a Christ figure, when the bell rang.
I was still sitting at my desk after everyone left the classroom. It
was my last class of the day and I wanted to get home. Father didn’t
say anything. He turned off the record player, closed the lid, then
erased the board with slow methodical strokes. Finally he walked to my
desk.
“I want you to clean up the room. There’s a broom in the closet over
there. There’s probably some gum under the desktops that needs to be
scraped off.”
“What did I do?”
“I just need a helper, someone to tidy up afterwards, that’s all. You
can also carry this record player back to the Principal’s Office when
you’re through.”
“I’m being punished for being an atheist?”
“You’re being taught that sometimes you should just keep your damn
mouth shut.”
It would take more than an afternoon after school to teach me that.
published in
shorter version, Sept. 04, sanfranciscosentinel.com ©
2004
Going
for a job interviews dressed as a cross between
Boy
George and Kiss was more than challenging.
Mr. Kettle
and Mrs.
Tee
The
funniest thing I did that summer was to look for a job.
My friends swore I was unemployable. After all, my previous work
experience, in addition to pumping gas and washing cars at my father’s
gas station, was collecting old newspapers and bottles from neighbors
to bring to the junk yard.
My only real expertise was freaking people out on the streets by
walking around in genderfuck. I made blurring the line between
masculine and feminine an art and a science (Start with foundation,
draw a star under the eye, add...). An activist friend told me I was
“walking street theatre.” She said I should charge people for the
entertainment. Hardly something I could put on my resume.
Going for job interviews dressed as a cross between Boy George and Kiss
was more than challenging. It was an exercise in futility. Openings
suddenly slammed shut, personnel directors got lock jaw and secretaries
asked me where I bought that incredible blue eye shadow with a touch of
glitter in it.
I was beginning to feel like I had a starring role in Mission
Impossible when I spotted a hand-written flyer on the bulletin
board of the neighborhood Post Office. The store seeking help was
located inside a huge warehouse that had recently been turned into a
shopping mall. The individual stores were lined up on either side of a
wide main aisle that was paved in black and white tiles. Flimsy walls
separated the individual businesses. They rose three-quarters of the
height to the high ceiling that had exposed wooden beams and pipes of
varying widths. Every few feet, florescent light fixtures hung on heavy
metal chains. My destination, the record store, was sandwiched between
Linens and Camera Supplies.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went in to ask for an application.
To my surprise, I got hired on the spot. I didn’t even need to fill out
any paperwork. Only a yellow index card with my name, address and phone
number. The store was owned by two hippies. The store manager, Joe, was
a straight white stoner with long dark hair who thought everything was
“sooo cool, man.” To him, my style of dress was the ultimate in glitter
rock. It was as if David Bowie’s musical alter ego had come to work for
him. He dubbed me “Tony Stardust Dude.”
“You part of a rock band?” he asked me as I filled out the card.
I didn’t look up. “Nope. I’m my own act.”
“I can see that. I like it.”
A sharp contrast to the first time Mr. Kettle, the white mall manager,
saw me at the register. “Who the hell are you?” he asked, his entire
face turning a deep chili pepper red.
“Tony.”
“What the hell’re you dressed for? The Circus? I wanna talk to Joe.”
I paged him and Joe came out from the stock room. Was I going to get
fired already? I wondered if that would be a Guinness Book record:
Dismissed after less than an hour on the job.
“You can’t allow your employees
to dress like that,” Kettle told my manager.
“Why not? It’s his choice.”
“This is a family store. If someone wants to prance around in a tutu
that’s his own damn business, but not while he’s working here!”
“That’s not very democratic.”
“Don’t give me that crazy hippie talk. I want him in appropriate
clothing tomorrow or he’s fired.”
“Uh, you can’t fire my employees.”
“Then I’ll talk to your bosses.” He walked off.
“Don’t pay attention to him,” Joe said, going back to his work.
Joe never called the owners but Mr. Kettle did. They told him in so
many words to mind his own business. Mr. Kettle had to get used to the
idea of having a gender bender behind the register at the record store.
Which might have been possible except that my friends visited me almost
nightly. They didn’t all dress wildly, but they got on Mr. Kettle’s
nerves nonetheless. He began watching our department like a hawk. He’d
stand in the aisle and stare when someone was talking to me at the
register. “Don’t you have work to do?” he’d ask.
“I’m minding the register.”
“You need company to do that? Maybe I should order some tea and
crumpets, too?”
If the friend were dressed outrageously, he’d quip, “Another of your
circus friends?”
So it wasn’t the best idea for Arnold, my African American boyfriend,
to come in one night and serenade me with a love song. Arnold was a
professional singer and did musicals at local theatres. He could belt
them out with the best of them. His professional friends didn’t call
him “Ethel” for nothing.
Arnold was almost finished his ballad when along came Mrs. Tee, the
African American woman who headed up security. A small crowd had
gathered to hear Arnold. They were wondering who he was. “What group’s
he with?” some people asked.
“Uh, what is going on?” Mrs. Tee asked, as Arnold took his bow. The
crowd applauded, then began to wander off to do their shopping.
“Oh, Hi, Mrs. Tee, this is my boyfriend, Arnold...” I had never spoken
to her before. I had heard that you didn’t mess with Mrs. Tee. She was
a big woman with a stern face and short cropped hair. She wore small
clip-on earrings that looked like they were family heirlooms and a
plain brown dress that hung to her knees. On her feet were sensible
black pumps.
“Hello, Mrs. Tee,” Arnold said and extended his hand to shake hers. She
hesitated, then returned the gesture.
“You can’t go around singing in the store, Arnold. If Mr. Kettle...”
“Sorry, you’re right,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”
“You do have a beautiful voice, though,” she said to him, smiling.
“You should come and see me at the TLA. I’ll comp you.”
“I think I’ll do that.” Since the crowd had dispersed, she walked off
to check out things in the rest of the store.
When Arnold left, Mrs. Tee came back over to my register. “He’s a very
nice young man. And good looking, too.”
“I agree.”
“You like him a lot, huh?” I nodded. Obviously she was anything but
shy. I didn’t mind. I figured it was the only way to educate straights,
and if by some chance she was one of Dorothy’s friends, then I might be
helping her come to terms with her own feelings.
“Where did you guys meet, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“At a gay conference at Temple University.” Temple, the local
state-funded college, was a hotbed of leftist political activity,
including anti-war, feminist and gay groups. It was where working-class
kids like myself got a higher education.
Mrs. Tee spotted Mr. Kettle coming down the aisle. “Gotta go.”
Mr. Kettle gave me a suspicious look. “Is anything wrong here?”
“Nope.”
He walked off to catch up to Mrs. Tee.
Sometimes
I went days without any interaction with
Mr. Kettle, which was fine by me. Mrs. Tee, on the other hand, always
came by to talk. If I went to the food counter for something to drink,
she’d often sit on the stool next to me. She asked a lot of questions.
How did I know I was “that way?” What did my parents think? What about
Arnold’s parents? She was also curious to know about where gays went to
meet each other. I became convinced that Mrs. Tee had a secret that Mr.
Tee didn’t know about. Was there even a Mr. Tee? I asked her one day
and she said he was dead. That cinched it for me. I decided I was going
to get her to come out. How I would do that, I didn’t know. Maybe I
would just ask her. I planned to it on more than one occasion, but
always chickened out at the last moment.
One night, three rowdy drag queens, two white and one black, came into
the store dishing the dirt a mile a minute and at decibels that sent
their voices cascading throughout the mall. They passed my register and
headed for the Women’s Department, which was across the aisle and a
little to the left. Every eye in the store was on them as they checked
out the selections on the racks and chattered loudly among themselves.
I had seen them hanging out at Day’s Deli where many queens held court
while nursing a coffee and a croissant. I didn’t know their names. When
one of the white queens went into the women’s dressing room to try on
something, Mr. Kettle was summoned by a sales clerk who didn’t know
what to do.
Mr. Kettle stopped at my register on his way to the women’s department.
“Friends of yours?”
“Nope. Never saw them before.”
“And if I have my way, you’ll never see them in this store again,” Mr.
Kettle said. Mrs. Tee approached from Linens where she had been
checking out a group of kids who were hanging out near the back.
“Get ‘em the hell outa my damn store! Now!” Kettle screamed to his
security chief as he stomped off to the women’s dressing room.
“There’re children here.” I got Joe to cover the register and followed
Mr. Kettle and Mrs. Tee as they left on their mission of eradicating
bad influences from our “family store.”
“They’re not bothering nobody,” Miss Tee said.
“I don’t care, I want them outa my store!”
“Mr. Kettle, you need to go to the office and take your high blood
pressure medicine. I got everything under control.”
“If you had everything under control you wouldn’t’ve let them come in
this store in the first place.”
“What am I supposed to do, ban all people who don’t dress the way you
think they should?”
When they arrived at the dressing room, Mr. Kettle banged on the door
with his fist. “Come outa there right this minute!” The queen peeked
out.
“You have no right to be in there.”
“I’m buying this dress. You like?” The queen opened the door and
modeled it for him.
“It’s very nice,” Mrs. Tee said.
“Is there a problem?” one of the other queens asked.
“Everything’s fine,” Mrs. Tee said.
“Everything’s not fine. I can’t have this in my store. You three will
have to leave immediately. Or I’m calling the cops.”
“Nobody’s going nowhere,” Mrs. Tee countered. “Now, if you want that
dress, fine. If you girls want to look some more, that’s okay, too. I’m
head of security. I think Mr. Kettle is overreacting.”
“Good,” said the black queen, “cause I’d sure hate to go to the Human
Rights Commission first thing tomorrow morning to file a complaint
about discrimination.”
“I wanna see you in my office when you’re done here,” Mr. Kettle said
to Mrs. Tee before taking off.
“Now ladies, go back to your shopping. Sorry for the interruption. And
the rest of you,” she said to the onlookers, “mind your own business.
The show’s over.”
Mrs. Tee obviously had no problem holding her own against Mr. Kettle. I
learned that in an even bigger way a few days later. I was about to go
on dinner break when Arnold paid me a surprise visit. We grabbed
something from the lunch counter and headed into the stock room. It was
crowded with sale items that didn’t fit on the display shelves and
empty boxes that needed to be broken down. Fortunately we had enough
room to eat in the front near Joe’s desk. We set down our food and
placed two folding chairs side by side.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
“Oh, nothing, I was lonely. I miss you.”
“It’s only been four hours...”
“I know. C’mere.” I sat in his lap and we kissed for a while. We fed
each other French Fries in between smooches. There wasn’t much light so
it felt real private.
It wasn’t. “What’s going on in here?” a voice asked. I jumped into the
other chair.
“Uh, Mr. Kettle! Sorry, I’m on my dinner break.”
“Obviously not doing what you’re supposed to be doing. I wanna see you
in my office now. And get him outa here, only employees’re allowed in
stock rooms.”
I
must have been shaking visibly, sitting there in
front of Mr. Kettle’s desk. I had only been in the office once before,
when I had to bring him some paperwork from Joe. I couldn’t afford to
lose my job. It was helping to pay my way through college, which was
keeping me out of the draft.
Our union stewart, Gladys, a thin black woman with a missing tooth in
the front of her mouth, was seated to my right. She was shaking her
head. “I’m not saying that I approve of what he was doing, but there
ain’t nothing you can do about it, Mr. Kettle. He was on his own time.”
Gladys wore an elegant gray skirt and a red blouse. Her lips were
painted bright pink and her cheeks were smeared with too much rouge.
She held on to a plain black purse with a gold snap, sometimes opening
and closing it for no apparent reason.
“But he was in my stock room.”
“Correction. He was in the stock room that you’re renting to the record
store,” Gladys replied. “If they want to do something to him, that’s
different. They’ll still be subject to union rules, though.”
“Those damn hippies won’t do nothing. You know that. I want something
done--tonight. I’m not fooling around this time. He’s had enough
chances. He just doesn’t care about what anybody thinks, he just does
what he wants. It stops right here and now.”
“It’s not like he was doing it where people could see...” Mrs. Tee
suddenly said. She was standing near the door with her arms folded over
her chest as if she were keeping watch. She had been silent up to that
point, as I had been. I figured that it was best I not speak until
someone asked me a question.
“Weren’t you listening to me? I don’t care. I want him outa here!”
Kettle shouted. “I’ve been putting up with this nonsense since that
record store opened. If it isn’t the loud obnoxious music that they
play that gives everybody a headache, then it’s the way they dress and
behave. They just don’t have any common sense over there.”
“You can’t do it, goddamn it. You heard Gladys! What’re you deaf or
something? Now, you stop this bullshit right this minute!” She had
raised her voice to Mr. Kettle before, but never used language like
that. Nobody raised their voice to Kettle, let alone cussed him. He
shot her a disapproving look. She glared back at him.
“Then what do you suggest I do, Mrs. Tee?” Mr. Kettle asked in a
quieter voice.
“Nothing.”
He got louder. “So he can just go on doing whatever he wants, wherever
he wants and whenever he wants?”
“Welcome to America.”
“It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s got to do with human decency.
You can’t possibly approve of what he’s doing?!”
“Maybe I do.”
“What? Are you nuts?”
“Mr. Kettle, you don’t seem to understand that some of us don’t agree
with your outdated attitudes about things.” She paused. “I’ve been
keeping my mouth shut for a long time.”
“Mrs. Tee, don’t say something you might later...”
“I ain’t gonna regret saying nothing,” she interrupted. “It’s about
time somebody said these things. The truth is, Mr. Kettle, I had a
brother who was like that. He was the sweetest guy you ever wanted to
meet. He didn’t harm nobody. You hear me? He didn’t do nothing to
nobody. He wasn’t in no gang, he didn’t do no drugs. He liked to dress
in women’s clothes and put on makeup and go out dancing on weekends.
Everybody liked him. They didn’t understand why he did what he did but
they knew he was a good kid. Some people judged him. They got all
righteous about God and the Bible. That was their thing. I never argued
with them. What was the point? Now I wish I had. I should’ve said
something. When those ladies came in the other night, I saw my brother.
He would’ve come in here like that, all sassy and proud. Sometimes he
loved to get a good rise outa people, you know what I mean? And why
not? It didn’t do nobody no harm. It might’ve shook them up a little
bit, but that’s okay.” She stopped. Her jaw became tighter, her lips
quivered. She seemed as if she were about to cry. “Do you know what
they did? They killed him, Mr. Kettle. They left him in an alley all
bloodied and broken...the police ain’t never arrested nobody for it.”
“I’m sorry...” It was the first time I ever heard anything vaguely
resembling compassion from Mr. Kettle.
“Sorry ain’t enough. You gotta do more than be sorry. You gotta open up
your heart and let the understanding in. I know it ain’t easy. But you
gotta do it. And don’t ask me to judge cause I won’t. I don’t know why
people’re the way my brother was, and I don’t care. They just are.
That’s good enough for me.”
“Amen, sister.” It was Gladys. She was smiling.
“Now if you got something to say that isn’t about your own problem with
gay people, then I suggest you say it. Otherwise, Gladys, Tony and I
got work to do.”
“Just get the hell outa here,” Kettle murmured.
We didn’t argue.
published
in shorter form in June 04 sanfranciscosentinel.com © 2004
